Capcom Once Considered a Supernatural Element for Resident Evil 7

July 18, 2016
Written by Jason Dunning

Interviewed by Eurogamer at E3 2016, Resident Evil 7Producer Masachika Kawata said they were already in development on the game when Hideo Kojima’s PT was announced, and they were surprised to see it. “I’m worried about how my jokes come across but I hear Brits like black humor. So, out of everyone, we were the most relieved when PT didn’t come out,” he added with a laugh.

Although Silent Hills was ultimately cancelled, PT’s positive reception “was a signpost for us that [first-person] was a good direction to be going in,” RE7 Game Director Koushi Nakanishi says.

Resident Evil 7 takes place entirely in first-person, and PlayStation 4 owners can play it in PlayStation VR. As Kawata explained, limiting people’s movements while in virtual reality helps reduce any potential player discomfort:

Looking at what others are doing with VR, if you want to deal with the comfort issue – because some people do get sick – the most extreme solution is to just not have people moving, to be fixed in place. We saw that with our Kitchen demo last year, when you are strapped down and other things go on around you.

That satisfies the needs of people who need to feel comfortable with VR, but it also limits the game for those who want a full experience. They want to get out into the game going on around them, so we challenged ourselves to make a game that lets them do that.

Resident Evil 7 is set in a remote community in the southern United States and won’t feature any sort of supernatural elements, but as Nakanishi revealed, they once considered going that direction. “We haven’t turned Resident Evil into a ghost story,” he said. “At the beginning we did consider everything, though – and wondered what we could bring in for more of a supernatural dimension. But we didn’t end up going down that route.”

If you’re hoping Resident Evil 4’s merchant will make an appearance in the new game, Kawata said he’s busy over in Spain and unrelated to the Amercan setting, “but we do have other strange things…,” he teased.

In other Resident Evil 7 news, Capcom announced today that the Kitchen demo in PlayStation VR mode – a “short but intense” demo that sets up events leading up to RE7 – will be playable at San Diego Comic-Con.